Gosport Jazz Club exists as a non-profit making organisation to provide and promote high quality live traditional jazz in Gosport and surrounding areas. The Club arranges live performances every other Wednesday by mainly British bands, although there have been visits by bands from as far away as Australia, the USA and Europe. For the programme see the Gigs page. The current venue is Gosport & Fareham Rugby Club - for further details see the Location page.

The origins of the Club date back to the 1960s - see below for a more complete history of Pop music and Jazz in Gosport post-WW

For more information on Nat see The Last Post but also see the NEWS page entry for 23 August 2018.A Nat Gonella commemorative gig is held in March of every year, near to the date of his birthday.

Nat’s last trumpet.

Graham Trevarton playing Nat’s trumpet at the gig by Roger Marks’ Cornish Armada gig in March 2016

Not so well known is that Nat also played the Clarinet and the Club was fortunate enough to be able to obtain this instrument in December 2014 together with proof of his one-time ownership of it. See the photos below. The Clarinet has been donated to Gosport Discovery Centre and has been displayed there since December 2015.

The origins of the club are in about 1978 when Molly & Ken Barton, landlords at the Park Hotel, Park Road, Gosport (now the Park Tavern), started Jazz nights with bands including Cuff Billett, Doug & Dory Whitfield, Monty Sunshine, Bob Jenkins, Teddy Layton, Chris Newman, with Nat Gonella giving guest appearances. This gave Nat a new lease of life. He appeared regularly and featured on Radio Victory with Cuff where Nat is particularly remembered singing "Miss Otis Regrets.

When Molly & Ken moved to Farnborough in about 1981, Pat & Tony Wing took over organising the Jazz nights and began calling it Gosport Jazz Club for the first time. This started at Kelly's Hotel for a short time, then moved to Gosport Borough Football Club and then to the Thorngate Halls. Tony and Pat ran the Club for about 26 years and we are very grateful to them for the continuation of Trad Jazz in Gosport.

In 2007 Terry Hinkley took over responsibility from Tony and in January 2011 the Club moved to its present Venue of Gosport & Fareham Rugby Club. However, in June 2012 Terry suffered health problems and a Committee, comprised of members, took over responsibility for running the Club, as is currently the situation.

Tony Wing and Terry Hinckley are Honorary Presidents of the Club.

Long before that, Club member Maurice Kemp remembers jazz record recitals being held at Privett School which preceded the founding by Vic Brown and others of the Downbeat Club which ran weekly, live, mainly Trad Jazz events, from 1957 to the mid 1960s. There was no active Jazz-based organisation in Gosport from the mid-1960s to 1981. Further information about the activities of the Downbeat Club is given by following this link as a Word document. or in Portable Document Format (.pdf).